While once rated one of the "happiest" countries in the world, it is not so surprising then that in North Korea mental illness is rarely discussed or heard of outside of politics.
However, in this interesting article below we gain a greater understanding of the mental health system in North Korea and how common mental illnesses are managed from isolating those with schizophrenia to treating depression as a physical rather than emotional or mental illness.
"Internal medicine doctors and neurologists rather than psychiatrists treat what are considered the less serious cases of mental duress. The North Koreans do not have a real concept of depression; the media rarely even use the term unless they are projecting it as one of a number of sicknesses endemic to a bourgeois capitalist society like America. Instead, the preferred terms for any kind of neuroticism are cardiac neurosis and neurasthenia (an outdated category of diagnosis in modern psychiatry). Conditions such as prolonged anxiety, insomnia or fatigue that in the West one might associate with a psychological condition are considered physical rather than mental ailments, and the treatment such as herbal medicine accordingly targets the body more than the mind."
For the full article click here: http://www.nknews.org/2014/12/a-look-into-the-dprk-mental-health-system/
However, in this interesting article below we gain a greater understanding of the mental health system in North Korea and how common mental illnesses are managed from isolating those with schizophrenia to treating depression as a physical rather than emotional or mental illness.
"Internal medicine doctors and neurologists rather than psychiatrists treat what are considered the less serious cases of mental duress. The North Koreans do not have a real concept of depression; the media rarely even use the term unless they are projecting it as one of a number of sicknesses endemic to a bourgeois capitalist society like America. Instead, the preferred terms for any kind of neuroticism are cardiac neurosis and neurasthenia (an outdated category of diagnosis in modern psychiatry). Conditions such as prolonged anxiety, insomnia or fatigue that in the West one might associate with a psychological condition are considered physical rather than mental ailments, and the treatment such as herbal medicine accordingly targets the body more than the mind."
For the full article click here: http://www.nknews.org/2014/12/a-look-into-the-dprk-mental-health-system/
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